Beneath London by James P Blaylock
James P Blaylock , Sci-Fi , Titan Books / June 26, 2015

The collapse of the Victoria Embankment uncovers a passage to an unknown realm beneath the city. Langdon St. Ives sets out to explore it, not knowing that a brilliant and wealthy psychopathic murderer is working to keep the underworlds secrets hidden for reasons of his own. St. Ives and his stalwart friends investigate a string of ghastly crimes: the gruesome death of a witch, the kidnapping of a blind, psychic girl, and the grim horrors of a secret hospital where experiments in medical electricity Read more […]

Vostok by Steve Alten
Rebel Press , Sci-Fi , Steve Alten , Thriller / March 23, 2015

Please note Vostok is a sequel to The Loch. If you haven’t read that first then there is a good chance you’ll miss out on some important elements of this on-going story. Also this review may contain a few minor spoilers. East Antarctica: The coldest, most desolate location on Earth. Two-and-a-half miles below the ice cap is Vostok, a six thousand square mile liquid lake, over a thousand feet deep, left untouched for more than 15 million years. Now, marine biologist Zachary Wallace and two Read more […]

Goodhouse by Peyton Marshall
Doubleday , Peyton Marshall , Sci-Fi / January 9, 2015

At the end of the twenty-first century—in a transformed America—the families of convicted felons are tested for a set of genetic markers. Boys who test positive become compulsory wards of the state—removed from their homes and raised on Goodhouse campuses, where they learn to reform their darkest thoughts and impulses. Goodhouse is a feral place—part prison, part boarding school—and now a radical religious group, the Holy Redeemer’s Church of Purity, has begun to target these schools Read more […]

Macaque Attack by Gareth Powell
Gareth Powell , Sci-Fi , Solaris / January 3, 2015

Spoiler Alert! Macaque Attack is the third book in the Macaque trilogy so there is a bloomin’ good chance if you haven’t read books one and two, this review may contain the odd spoiler here and there. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Ack-Ack’s back – and this time he’s brought an army! He’s saved the world twice. Now, in the thrilling conclusion to the award-winning Macaque Trilogy, the dangerous but charismatic Ack-Ack Macaque finds himself leading a dimension-hopping troupe of angry Read more […]

The Eloquent Page – 2014 in Review
Fantasy , General , Horror , News , Sci-Fi / December 30, 2014

Welcome to The Eloquent Page review of 2014. It’s been another barnstormer, genre fiction wise, in the last twelve months. I’ve managed seventy eight books and for the first time ever the site has had over two hundred thousand page views which equates to over fifty thousand unique visitors. That boggles my tiny mind. But never mind all this statistical mayhem. Let’s cut to the chase. It’s time for my awards for the year. Random as ever, and judged by a panel of one, me. The “They Did What?” Read more […]

Lowball edited by George R R Martin & Melinda M Snodgrass

Decades after an alien virus changed the course of history, the surviving population of Manhattan still struggles to understand the new world left in its wake. Natural humans share the rough city with those given extraordinary—and sometimes terrifying—traits. While most manage to coexist in an uneasy peace, not everyone is willing to adapt. Down in the seedy underbelly of Jokertown, residents are going missing. The authorities are unwilling to investigate, except for a fresh lieutenant looking Read more […]

Letters Between Gentlemen by Professor Elemental and Nimue Brown

In a break from tradition what follows is not a standard review but rather an open letter to Professor Elemental on the occasion of the publication of his Letters Between Gentlemen. But first a little background… Professor Elemental: Misunderstood and benevolent genius, evil killer; or slightly deluded idiot? Private investigator Algernon Spoon really isn’t sure, but as the bodies mount up, it looks like someone is bent on slaughter: But who? And Why? And is there going to be Battenburg? Dear Read more […]

Jani and the Greater Game by Eric Brown
Eric Brown , Sci-Fi , Solaris / August 7, 2014

It’s 1910 and the British rule the subcontinent with an iron fist – and with strange technology fuelled by a power source known as Annapurnite – discovered in the foothills of Mount Annapurna. But they rule but at the constant cost of their enemies, mainly the Russians and the Chinese, attempting to learn the secret of this technology… This political confrontation is known as The Greater Game. Into this conflict is pitched eighteen year old Janisha Chaterjee who discovers a strange device which Read more […]

Irregularity edited by Jared Shurin

Irregularity is a collaboration between the National Maritime Museum and award-winning publisher Jurassic London: a collection of fourteen original stories from some of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction. Using the Longitude Act as the jumping off point, Irregularity is inspired by the great thinkers of the Age of Reason – those courageous men and women who set out to map, chart, name and classify the world around them. The great minds who brought order and discipline to the universe. Read more […]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch

It is ten years since the attack that reduced Pittsburgh to ashes. Today all that remains is the Archive: an interactive digital record of the city and its people. John Dominic Blaxton is a survivor, one of the ‘lucky ones’ who escaped the blast. Crippled by the loss of his wife and unborn daughter, he spends his days immersed in the Archive with the ghosts of yesterday. It is there he finds the digital record of a body: a woman, lying face down, half buried in mud. Who is she … and why is Read more […]

Skinjob by Bruce McCabe
Bantam Press , Bruce McCabe , Sci-Fi , Thriller / July 11, 2014

A bomb goes off in down town San Francisco. Twelve people are dead. But this is no ordinary target. This target exists on the fault line where sex and money meet. Daniel Madsen is one of a new breed of federal agents armed with a badge, a gun and the Bureau’s latest piece of technology. He’s a fast operator and his instructions are simple: find the bomber – and before he strikes again. In order to understand what is at stake, Madsen must plunge into a sleazy, unsettling world where reality Read more […]

Barricade by Jon Wallace
Gollancz , Jon Wallace , Sci-Fi / June 19, 2014

Kenstibec was genetically engineered to build a new world, but the apocalypse forced a career change. These days he drives a taxi instead. A fast-paced, droll and disturbing novel, BARRICADE is a savage road trip across the dystopian landscape of post-apocalypse Britain; narrated by the cold-blooded yet magnetic antihero, Kenstibec. Kenstibec is a member of the ‘Ficial’ race, a breed of merciless super-humans. Their war on humanity has left Britain a wasteland, where Ficials hide in barricaded Read more […]

Fires of Man by Dan Levinson
Dan Levinson , Jolly Fish Press , Sci-Fi / June 17, 2014

Supposedly, the war between Calchis and Orion ended decades ago. But upon reporting to an isolated Orion army base for basic training, Private Stockton Finn learns the war still rages, only the weapons have changed–most disturbingly of all, Finn has been selected to become one of those weapons. Across the border, young Calchan farm boy Aaron Waverly learns all too well just how determined his country is to win the war when he is abducted from his family’s property by a sinister government operative Read more […]